For 13 years, Fox News presented Wayne Simmons as a CIA officer. He's now indicted as a fraud. Let's recap his lies

Surprise: One of Fox News’ most popular so-called “terror analysts” was actually a con man.

Con artist Wayne Simmons created an elaborate life story. It is fake. He identified as a CIA outside paramilitary special operations officer. He wasn’t. He wrote a book claiming he worked in the CIA for 27 years. He didn’t.

Fox News took him at his word. So did the U.S. government. Simmons worked as a subcontractor for the government multiple times, and was even invited to train at an Army facility. He ended up receiving security clearance and served as an intelligence advisor to senior military personnel overseas. So much for background checks.

Simmons’ website is chock-full of articles, media appearances, and “patriot pictures.” He even has a page devoted to patented credit card technology called HADRiAN he claims to have created with a Delaware company that is actually in New Jersey.

To say Wayne Simmons is a suspicious character would be to engage in understatement. The feds could tell. A federal grand jury indicted him on numerous counts of fraud and making false statements.

This doesn’t undo the damage Simmons has already done, however. For what is even more disturbing than the fact that he deceived the media and the government for this long is the fact that Simmons used his faux-authority to spread ludicrous and jingoist right-wing propaganda.

For 13 years, Simmons ceaselessly spewed unsubstantiated opinions on Fox News, under the facade of being a CIA veteran and “national security and terrorism expert.”

The following are just 11 of the preposterous things Fox favorite Wayne Simmons — a snake oil salesman who peddles odious lies and fear — proposed and claimed:

Racial profiling

In 2011, Simmons insisted on Fox News that the U.S. government should racially profile people from Muslim-majority countries. Calling himself a “pro-profiler,” Simmons proclaimed “I am just adamant about profiling, and we need to do it.”

When Senator John McCain proposed, in Fox’s words, “banning some immigrants from radical countries,” Simmons replied “I think it’s a great idea; should have been done years ago.”

Muslim paramilitary camps

Simmons claimed on Fox News in early 2015 that there are “at least 19 paramilitary Muslim training facilities in the United States,” where Muslims are being trained to carry out terrorist attacks on Americans. As a source, he cited Islamophobic right-wing propaganda outlet the Clarion Project.

While spreading flagrantly false rumors about supposed “no-go zones” in Europe in which non-Muslims are not allowed to enter, Simmons warned viewers “We are in a global war, a global war against Islamic jihad.”

Assassinating democratically elected leaders

Simmons called for the U.S. government to assassinate democratically elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 2005. “If a stray bullet from a hunter in Kentucky should find its way between this guy’s eyes, no American should lose any sleep over it,” Simmons quipped.

Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes egged him on. “Do you want him dead?” Colmes asked, referring to Chávez — who was democratically elected numerous times and was, by far, the most popular leader in Venezuela’s history. “Absolutely,” Simmons replied. “He should have been killed a long time ago… It doesn’t matter to me who kills this guy. He’s to go.” Simmons even went so far, at the nudging of Hannity and Colmes, to compare the Venezuelan president to Hitler.

Executing ‘traitors’

Simmons frequently called for bloodletting on air. On Fox News in 2005, he asserted that American “traitors” should be executed by “firing squad.”

On Fox’s Freedom Watch in 2010, Simmons called whistleblowing journalism organization WikiLeaks “a terrorist organization.” Simmons accused WikiLeaks of “hiding behind” the First Amendment in order “to come against the national security of the United States.”

The Fox host characterized WikiLeaks and those who leaked to it as “threats to America.” He also introduced the con man saying “Wayne Simmons, you are a former intelligence agent of the USA who risked his life for national security and other laudable purposes; you also took an oath to uphold the Constitution.”

Hidden WMDs

When weapons of mass destruction weren’t found in Iraq, Simmons happily went on Fox in 2007 to claim they could have been hidden in other Middle Eastern countries, namely in Syria or Lebanon.

Simmons was still riffing on this groundless ruse in 2013. He told Fox News that there was a “very high probability” that the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had hidden WMDs in Syria.

Mass surveillance

Simmons always came out to bat for mass surveillance. When, in 2006, the FBI admitted that a supposed terrorist plot to attack NFL stadiums was a “hoax,” Simmons claimed on Fox News that this was “the perfect example of the president’s Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the NSA terrorist eavesdropping program, how vital they are. Without them, we cannot, as the president wants us to do, pre-emptively strike the terrorists.”

The other guest on the program at the time, Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the right-wing Center for Security Policy think tank, fearmongered about so-called “Islamofascists,” who he insisted “are determined to kill as many of us as they can.” In a sigh of relief, Fox News host Neil Cavuto declared “We dodged a bullet here, or presumably a hoaxed bullet, but still.”

‘9/11s unabated’

In 2005, on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, Simmons claimed that if “the Democrats come into power in the United States and re-employ their vision of defense for this country, we will have 9/11s unabated.”

“This will absolutely be proven to be fact,” Simmons insisted. “That’s not maybe,” he warned.

Anti-war ‘psy-ops’

When Democratic Congressman John Murtha criticized the Iraq War in 2006, Simmons said a “psy-ops, or a psychological operation, in and by itself, can decimate the enemy if it’s run correctly. The problem is Murtha’s running a psy-op against his own people and against his own military.”

Media controlled by al-Qaeda

“The terrorists know that they have the press and they have the ACLU in their pocket” Simmons stated on Fox News in 2005. He maintained that news outlets like The New York Times and The LA Times, along with NGOs like the ACLU, were helping terrorist groups by reporting on or criticizing the U.S. government’s illegal torture program.

White House conspiracies

In 2011, Simmons was invited on Fox to discuss U.S. military involvement in Pakistan. Fox introduced Simmons as a “former CIA operative who knows the area well,” and asked the con artist to comment on military policy. Naturally, Simmons insisted that the Obama administration — which for years had conducted a covert drone war there that left thousands of people dead, including hundreds of civilians — was not being aggressive enough.

Conspiracy-theory style, Simmons speculated that the White House had ordered General Petraeus to downplay the threat of terrorism in Pakistan in order to “help soft sell the eventual withdrawal.”

‘Terrorism “experts”‘

For 13 years, Simmons always came out with guns blazing in defense of conservative causes. There are bound to be countless more examples of the con man giving credence to baseless right-wing myths.

Wayne Simmons is a paragon of the fraudulent “terrorism expert.” Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald has pointed out that there are essentially no official standards in the U.S. media by which “counter-terrorism” pundits’ purported “expertise” is measured; they must simply ignore facts, blame Muslims, and trumpet U.S. propaganda. Simmons fulfills each of these preconditions and more.

The question everyone should now be asking is how many more Wayne Simmons are out there?

Ben Norton is a politics staff writer at Salon. You can find him on Twitter at @BenjaminNorton.

41 comments:

Racial profilingIn 2011, Simmons insisted on Fox News that the U.S. government should racially profile people from Muslim-majority countries. Calling himself a “pro-profiler,” Simmons proclaimed “I am just adamant about profiling, and we need to do it.”When Senator John McCain proposed, in Fox’s words, “banning some immigrants from radical countries,” Simmons replied “I think it’s a great idea; should have been done years ago.”

The term however should be theological or religious profiling, not racial, that is to say, we should profile for those whose book insists they kill us all.

If you don't agree with this, sleep on.......

Put Deuce's 4 million beloved Syrians in Philly if they are foolishly allowed in.....

Put a few hundred thousand over in Quirk's suburban neighborhood outside Detroit too.....

Has anyone been following the mess the moslem immigrants are making in Germany ?

You ought to read about it before buying into the idea we ought to allow them to come here.

In Sweden, one of the favorite pastimes of the moslem immigrants is raping Swedish women.

The numbers of Swedish women raped by moslem immigrants are astounding.

Several witnesses claim that the 21 year old has said that he hates Swedish women. Some Muslim immigrants ... number of rape charges in their ... Swedish women …23% of Swedish Women Will be Raped by Nonwhite Immigrants …www.dailystormer.com/23-of-swedish-women-will-be-raped-by-nonwhite...

... mainly due to immigration from Muslim ... culture is through violent rape of local women. Sweden now has the ... of all Swedish women will be raped at some ...1 in 4 Swedish Women Will Be Raped as Sexual Assaults ...www.frontpagemag.com/point/175434/1-4-swedish-women-will-be-raped...

Statistics now suggest that 1 out of every 4 Swedish women will be raped. Sweden now has the second highest number of ... higher as Muslim immigrants continue ...Britannia: Swedish woman raped to death by illegal …southendpatriot.blogspot.com/2014/01/swedish-woman-raped-to-death...

Jan 07, 2014 · ... are overwhelmingly perpetrated by Muslim immigrants. ... Swedish women reported being raped by Muslim ... The number of rapes is up 16% ...

Crazy Ass Bernie Sanders wrote that women like to be gang raped. I wonder how Bernie would like a good sodomizing by a bunch of moslems....perhaps he would change his mind......

A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused.

A woman enjoys intercourse with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by 3 men simultaneously.The man and woman get dressed up on Sunday — and go to Church, or maybe to their “revolutionary” political meeting.

As a public service, I pulled a couple of my posts that discussed the websites ( 14 Words and South End Patriot) Farmer Bob suggested we

Look it up sometime.

You can start here:

The posts included reference to the links Farmer Bob offered and even though I put up a warning note, I felt it safer to pull my posts rather than have someone inadvertently go to one of these skin-head, neo-nazi, white supremecist sites and end up on a terror watch list somewhere.

Omri Ceren asks , “@MSNBC have you actually lost your minds?” over the left wing network’s posting of a series of maps originally distributed by years ago by pro-Palestinian groups. The maps alleged depict the loss of land by Palestinians.

For a comprehensive debunking of the map, see this essay by the Elder of Zion dating from 2012, dubbing it “the map that lies.”

Tomorrow, in my continuing efforts to salvage something for the reputation for this joint, (yes, I can be that kind) I shall post a long article by Henry Kissinger on the situation in the mid-east, now in total Obama collapse, as he affirms.

Ash, by the same standard you are known as a moslem apologist, who never can find anything wrong with any islamic terrorist or act, That makes you a simple closed minded bigot that is just not at all smart too...

shSat Oct 17, 11:36:00 AM EDTAnd you just make shit up and spout it as if it were truth. There is no credibility in anything you post WiO. Between the lies and self contradictory posts it becomes just comedy. For example just just yesterday you blithely stated that the west bank was part of Israel.

He is very confident in his smug cocoon of unabashed ignorance, a classic case of not knowing what he doesn’t know but with a startling conviction of opinion and is self inoculated against any sense or understanding of irony in anything that he posts.

And you just make shit up and spout it as if it were truth. There is no credibility in anything you post WiO. Between the lies and self contradictory posts it becomes just comedy. For example just just yesterday you blithely stated that the west bank was part of Israel.

According to new data derived from the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS),median annual household income in August 2015 was $55,794, 1.1 percent (or $615)higher than the July 2015 median of $55,179. The median in August was at its highestlevel since the official end of the great recession in June 2009. The Sentier HouseholdIncome Index for August 2015 was 97.3 (January 2000 = 100).

These findings come from a report issued today by Sentier Research, titled “HouseholdIncome Trends: August 2015,” which presents monthly trends in household income fromJanuary 2000 to August 2015.

This most recent increase in median annual household income continues the generallyupward trend in income that has been evident since the low point in our householdincome series that occurred in August 2011. Median income in August 2015 ($55,794)was 5.0 percent higher than in August 2014 ($53,157), and 7.6 percent higher than inAugust 2011 ($51,835).

The period since August 2011 has been marked by an uneven,but generally upward trend in the level of real median annual household income. Many ofthe month-to-month changes in median income during this period have not beenstatistically significant. However, the cumulative effect of the various month-to-monthchanges since August 2011 resulted in the income improvement noted above. (See Figure1 at the back of this report.)According to Gordon Green of Sentier Research, “The 1.1 percent increase in medianhousehold income between July and August 2015 is one of the largest month-to-monthincreases in income during the post-recessionary period.

We have now recaptured all ofthe income losses that have occurred since June 2009, when the Great Recession ended.However, median household income is still 1.5 percent lower than December 2007, whenthe Great Recession began and 2.7 percent below the level in January 2000.”

According to Pollster, there is still no sign of a turn back to establishment Republicans. In fact, the triumvirate of crazy — Trump/Carson/Cruz — has about three times as much support as the combination of Bush, Rubio, and Kasich. It’s amazing.

But why don’t GOP voters realize that these are crazy people? Maybe because the things they say aren’t all that different from what supposedly reasonable Republicans say.

A case in point: The Donald has just come out with a monetary conspiracy theory: the reason the Fed hasn’t raised rates has nothing to do with low inflation and global headwinds, Janet Yellen is just doing Obama a political favor. Crazy, right?

But how different is this, really, from Paul Ryan and John Taylor claiming that quantitative easing wasn’t a good-faith effort to support a weak economy, but an attempt to “bail out fiscal policy”, preventing the fiscal crisis Obama’s policies were supposed to produce?

The difference between establishment Republicans and the likes of Trump, in other words, isn’t so much the substance of what they say as the tone; we’re supposed to consider Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, or Paul Ryan moderate because they insinuate their conspiracy theories rather than bellowing them and talk voodoo economics with a straight face. But why should we be surprised if the GOP base doesn’t see why this makes them more plausible?

But what could a tax-the-rich plan actually achieve? As it turns out, quite a lot, experts say. Given the gains that have flowed to those at the tip of the income pyramid in recent decades, several economists have been making the case that the government could raise large amounts of revenue exclusively from this small group, while still allowing them to take home a majority of their income...

The top 1 percent on average already pay roughly a third of their incomes to the federal government, according to a Treasury Department analysis that takes into account the entire menu of taxes — including income tax, payroll taxes that fund Medicare and Social Security, estate and gift taxes, excise and custom duties as well as investors’ share of corporate taxes. The tax bite on the top 0.1 percent is a bit higher. Most of those taxpayers insist they are already paying more than enough.

By comparison, the band of taxpayers right below them, in the 95th to 99th percentile, pay on average about $1 out of every $4. Those in the bottom half pay less than $1 out of every $10...

To get the most accurate picture possible, throw in all the scraps of income, from the most obvious (like wages, interest and dividends) to the least (like employer contributions to health plans, overseas earnings and growth in retirement accounts). According to that measure — used by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution — the top 1 percent includes about 1.13 million households earning an average income of $2.1 million.

Raising their total tax burden to, say, 40 percent would generate about $157 billion in revenue the first year. Increasing it to 45 percent brings in a whopping $276 billion. Even taking account of state and local taxes, the average household in this group would still take home at least $1 million a year.

AdvertisementContinue reading the main story

If the tax increase were limited to just the 115,000 households in the top 0.1 percent, with an average income of $9.4 million, a 40 percent tax rate would produce $55 billion in extra revenue in its first year.

That would more than cover, for example, the estimated $47 billion cost of eliminating undergraduate tuition at all the country’s four-year public colleges and universities, as Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed, or Mrs. Clinton’s cheaper plan for a debt-free college degree, with money left over to help fund universal prekindergarten.

A tax rate of 45 percent on this select group raises $109 billion, more than enough to pay for the first year of a new $2,500 child tax credit introduced by Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida.

Move a rung down the ladder and expand the contribution of those in the 95th to 99th percentile — who earn on average $405,000. Raising their total tax rate to 30 percent from a quarter of their total yearly income would generate an additional $86 billion. That’s enough to cover the cost over eight years of repealing the so-called Cadillac Tax on high-cost health plans, which Senator Sanders and Mrs. Clinton have endorsed...

A 35 percent share produces $176 billion — roughly the amount that the Federal Highway Administration has estimated is needed each year to improve conditions significantly on major urban highways.

Alternatively, those tax increases could be used to help reduce government borrowing: Some combination of those raises could go a long way toward wiping out this year’s estimated federal deficit of $426 billion.

“Most economists today would agree that raising taxes modestly would bring in more revenue” without doing any serious damage to the economy, said Roberton Williams, a fellow at the Tax Policy Center. The big question is how much is too much, because at some point, higher tax rates would discourage extra investment and work...

And that is the problem. Laffer became a rock star during the Reagan year's by drawing a simple normal curve on a napkin and calling it insight. Of course, the problem is that he was never able to tell us what the optimal point on the curve was (that point where positive growth and taxes just start to approach a downturn). No one else has been able to either.

The article goes on explain how the rich have gotten richer while the middle has taken it in the ass. But it ends up with a statement of the obvious, why we are unlikely to see any significant changes in the tax code.

Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, said maneuvering any tax overhaul “through that gauntlet of special interests is a herculean task.”

Pick one hundred of the best O-6 rank officers, send them to Camp David for 30 days and have them come up with $100 billion in saving that they could enact if promoted to O-7, without reducing legitimate defense. Include shuttering 3/4 of all overseas military basis and retiring 200 existing general officers.

You can't just look at the on-budget military expense though even with sequestration (which will likely be removed with this years budget) it is huge.

But start adding in off-budget items, special appropriations, black-ops operations, expenses for past wars (healthcare, disability, etc), and probably other things I haven't mentioned and we are likely approaching a $ trillion a year, at least we were when both Iraq and Afghanistan were going strong.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agencies set a new record for improper payments last year, shelling out $125 billion in questionable benefits after years of declines.

The payments included tax credits for families that didn't qualify, Medicare payments for treatments that might not have been necessary, and unemployment benefits for people who were actually working.

Improper payments increased by $19 billion over the previous year, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. In addition to fraud, the errors included overpayments and underpayments, as well as payments made without proper documentation.

While the errors were spread among 22 federal agencies, three programs stood out: Medicare, Medicaid and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Together, the three programs accounted for more than $93 billion in improper payments...

This is the one reason I still am a little reluctant to raise taxes, anything we give them will be wasted, on unnecessary wars, fraud and abuse, bridges to nowhere, lax oversight and control on government contracts, payoffs to political doners, etc. etc. etc.

A Path Out of the Middle East CollapseWith Russia in Syria, a geopolitical structure that lasted four decades isin shambles. The U.S. needs a new strategy and priorities.Syrians in Damascus thank Vladimir Putin for aiding the Assad regime, Oct.13. ENLARGESyrians in Damascus thank Vladimir Putin for aiding the Assad regime, Oct.13. Photo: SANA/Associated PressBy Henry A. KissingerOct. 16, 2015 7:18 p.m. ET195 COMMENTS

The debate about whether the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iranregarding its nuclear program stabilized the Middle East’s strategicframework had barely begun when the region’s geopolitical frameworkcollapsed. Russia’s unilateral military action in Syria is the latestsymptom of the disintegration of the American role in stabilizing theMiddle East order that emerged from the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.

In the aftermath of that conflict, Egypt abandoned its military ties withthe Soviet Union and joined an American-backed negotiating process thatproduced peace treaties between Israel and Egypt, and Israel and Jordan, aUnited Nations-supervised disengagement agreement between Israel andSyria, which has been observed for over four decades (even by the partiesof the Syrian civil war), and international support of Lebanon’s sovereignterritorial integrity. Later, Saddam Hussein’s war to incorporate Kuwaitinto Iraq was defeated by an international coalition under U.S.leadership. American forces led the war against terror in Iraq andAfghanistan. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States wereour allies in all these efforts. The Russian military presence disappearedfrom the region.

That geopolitical pattern is now in shambles. Four states in the regionhave ceased to function as sovereign. Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq havebecome targets for nonstate movements seeking to impose their rule. Overlarge swaths in Iraq and Syria, an ideologically radical religious armyhas declared itself the Islamic State (also called ISIS or ISIL) as anunrelenting foe of established world order. It seeks to replace theinternational system’s multiplicity of states with a caliphate, a singleIslamic empire governed by Shariah law.

ISIS’ claim has given the millennium-old split between the Shiite andSunni sects of Islam an apocalyptic dimension. The remaining Sunni statesfeel threatened by both the religious fervor of ISIS as well as by ShiiteIran, potentially the most powerful state in the region. Iran compoundsits menace by presenting itself in a dual capacity. On one level, Iranacts as a legitimate Westphalian state conducting traditional diplomacy,even invoking the safeguards of the international system. At the sametime, it organizes and guides nonstate actors seeking regional hegemonybased on jihadist principles: Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria; Hamas inGaza; the Houthis in Yemen.

Thus the Sunni Middle East risks engulfment by four concurrent sources:Shiite-governed Iran and its legacy of Persian imperialism; ideologicallyand religiously radical movements striving to overthrow prevalentpolitical structures; conflicts within each state between ethnic andreligious groups arbitrarily assembled after World War I into (nowcollapsing) states; and domestic pressures stemming from detrimentalpolitical, social and economic domestic policies.

The fate of Syria provides a vivid illustration: What started as a Sunnirevolt against the Alawite (a Shiite offshoot) autocrat Bashar Assadfractured the state into its component religious and ethnic groups, withnonstate militias supporting each warring party, and outside powerspursuing their own strategic interests. Iran supports the Assad regime asthe linchpin of an Iranian historic dominance stretching from Tehran tothe Mediterranean. The Gulf States insist on the overthrow of Mr. Assad tothwart Shiite Iranian designs, which they fear more than Islamic State.They seek the defeat of ISIS while avoiding an Iranian victory. Thisambivalence has been deepened by the nuclear deal, which in the SunniMiddle East is widely interpreted as tacit American acquiescence inIranian hegemony.

These conflicting trends, compounded by America’s retreat from the region,have enabled Russia to engage in military operations deep in the MiddleEast, a deployment unprecedented in Russian history. Russia’s principalconcern is that the Assad regime’s collapse could reproduce the chaos ofLibya, bring ISIS into power in Damascus, and turn all of Syria into ahaven for terrorist operations, reaching into Muslim regions insideRussia’s southern border in the Caucasus and elsewhere.

On the surface, Russia’s intervention serves Iran’s policy of sustainingthe Shiite element in Syria. In a deeper sense, Russia’s purposes do notrequire the indefinite continuation of Mr. Assad’s rule. It is a classicbalance-of-power maneuver to divert the Sunni Muslim terrorist threat fromRussia’s southern border region. It is a geopolitical, not an ideological,challenge and should be dealt with on that level. Whatever the motivation,Russian forces in the region—and their participation in combatoperations—produce a challenge that American Middle East policy has notencountered in at least four decades.

American policy has sought to straddle the motivations of all parties andis therefore on the verge of losing the ability to shape events. The U.S.is now opposed to, or at odds in some way or another with, all parties inthe region: with Egypt on human rights; with Saudi Arabia over Yemen; witheach of the Syrian parties over different objectives. The U.S. proclaimsthe determination to remove Mr. Assad but has been unwilling to generateeffective leverage—political or military—to achieve that aim. Nor has theU.S. put forward an alternative political structure to replace Mr. Assadshould his departure somehow be realized.

Russia, Iran, ISIS and various terrorist organizations have moved intothis vacuum: Russia and Iran to sustain Mr. Assad; Tehran to fosterimperial and jihadist designs. The Sunni states of the Persian Gulf,Jordan and Egypt, faced with the absence of an alternative politicalstructure, favor the American objective but fear the consequence ofturning Syria into another Libya.

American policy on Iran has moved to the center of its Middle East policy.The administration has insisted that it will take a stand against jihadistand imperialist designs by Iran and that it will deal sternly withviolations of the nuclear agreement. But it seems also passionatelycommitted to the quest for bringing about a reversal of the hostile,aggressive dimension of Iranian policy through historic evolutionbolstered by negotiation.

The prevailing U.S. policy toward Iran is often compared by its advocatesto the Nixon administration’s opening to China, which contributed, despitesome domestic opposition, to the ultimate transformation of the SovietUnion and the end of the Cold War. The comparison is not apt. The openingto China in 1971 was based on the mutual recognition by both parties thatthe prevention of Russian hegemony in Eurasia was in their commoninterest. And 42 Soviet divisions lining the Sino-Soviet border reinforcedthat conviction. No comparable strategic agreement exists betweenWashington and Tehran. On the contrary, in the immediate aftermath of thenuclear accord, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described theU.S. as the “Great Satan” and rejected negotiations with America aboutnonnuclear matters. Completing his geopolitical diagnosis, Mr. Khameneialso predicted that Israel would no longer exist in 25 years.

Forty-five years ago, the expectations of China and the U.S. weresymmetrical. The expectations underlying the nuclear agreement with Iranare not. Tehran will gain its principal objectives at the beginning of theimplementation of the accord. America’s benefits reside in a promise ofIranian conduct over a period of time. The opening to China was based onan immediate and observable adjustment in Chinese policy, not on anexpectation of a fundamental change in China’s domestic system. Theoptimistic hypothesis on Iran postulates that Tehran’s revolutionaryfervor will dissipate as its economic and cultural interactions with theoutside world increase.

American policy runs the risk of feeding suspicion rather than abating it.Its challenge is that two rigid and apocalyptic blocs are confronting eachother: a Sunni bloc consisting of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the GulfStates; and the Shiite bloc comprising Iran, the Shiite sector of Iraqwith Baghdad as its capital, the Shiite south of Lebanon under Hezbollahcontrol facing Israel, and the Houthi portion of Yemen, completing theencirclement of the Sunni world. In these circumstances, the traditionaladage that the enemy of your enemy can be treated as your friend no longerapplies. For in the contemporary Middle East, it is likely that the enemyof your enemy remains your enemy.

A great deal depends on how the parties interpret recent events. Can thedisillusionment of some of our Sunni allies be mitigated? How will Iran’sleaders interpret the nuclear accord once implemented—as a near-escapefrom potential disaster counseling a more moderate course, returning Iranto an international order? Or as a victory in which they have achievedtheir essential aims against the opposition of the U.N. Security Council,having ignored American threats and, hence, as an incentive to continueTehran’s dual approach as both a legitimate state and a nonstate movementchallenging the international order?

Two-power systems are prone to confrontation, as was demonstrated inEurope in the run-up to World War I. Even with traditional weaponstechnology, to sustain a balance of power between two rigid blocs requiresan extraordinary ability to assess the real and potential balance offorces, to understand the accumulation of nuances that might affect thisbalance, and to act decisively to restore it whenever it deviates fromequilibrium—qualities not heretofore demanded of an America shelteredbehind two great oceans.

But the current crisis is taking place in a world of nontraditionalnuclear and cyber technology. As competing regional powers strive forcomparable threshold capacity, the nonproliferation regime in the MiddleEast may crumble. If nuclear weapons become established, a catastrophicoutcome is nearly inevitable. A strategy of pre-emption is inherent in thenuclear technology. The U.S. must be determined to prevent such an outcomeand apply the principle of nonproliferation to all nuclear aspirants inthe region.

Too much of our public debate deals with tactical expedients. What we needis a strategic concept and to establish priorities on the followingprinciples:

• So long as ISIS survives and remains in control of a geographicallydefined territory, it will compound all Middle East tensions. Threateningall sides and projecting its goals beyond the region, it freezes existingpositions or tempts outside efforts to achieve imperial jihadist designs.The destruction of ISIS is more urgent than the overthrow of Bashar Assad,who has already lost over half of the area he once controlled. Making surethat this territory does not become a permanent terrorist haven must haveprecedence. The current inconclusive U.S. military effort risks serving asa recruitment vehicle for ISIS as having stood up to American might.

• The U.S. has already acquiesced in a Russian military role. Painful asthis is to the architects of the 1973 system, attention in the Middle Eastmust remain focused on essentials. And there exist compatible objectives.In a choice among strategies, it is preferable for ISIS-held territory tobe reconquered either by moderate Sunni forces or outside powers than byIranian jihadist or imperial forces. For Russia, limiting its militaryrole to the anti-ISIS campaign may avoid a return to Cold War conditionswith the U.S.

• The reconquered territories should be restored to the local Sunni rulethat existed there before the disintegration of both Iraqi and Syriansovereignty. The sovereign states of the Arabian Peninsula, as well asEgypt and Jordan, should play a principal role in that evolution. Afterthe resolution of its constitutional crisis, Turkey could contributecreatively to such a process.

• As the terrorist region is being dismantled and brought under nonradicalpolitical control, the future of the Syrian state should be dealt withconcurrently. A federal structure could then be built between the Alawiteand Sunni portions. If the Alawite regions become part of a Syrian federalsystem, a context will exist for the role of Mr. Assad, which reduces therisks of genocide or chaos leading to terrorist triumph.

• The U.S. role in such a Middle East would be to implement the militaryassurances in the traditional Sunni states that the administrationpromised during the debate on the Iranian nuclear agreement, and which itscritics have demanded.

• In this context, Iran’s role can be critical. The U.S. should beprepared for a dialogue with an Iran returning to its role as aWestphalian state within its established borders.

The U.S. must decide for itself the role it will play in the 21st century;the Middle East will be our most immediate—and perhaps most severe—test.At question is not the strength of American arms but rather Americanresolve in understanding and mastering a new world.

Mr. Kissinger served as national-security adviser and secretary of stateunder Presidents Nixon and Ford.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.